Indictment Sealed In Corruption Probe

A federal grand jury investigating corruption in Orange County handed up an indictment Friday in Orlando, but its contents were not disclosed.

Details of the crimes and the number of people charged were kept secret. U.S. Magistrate Donald Dietrich sealed the document at the request of Assistant U.S. Attorney Tom Turner.

Turner, who has been advising the grand jury during the investigation, declined to comment on the indictment. FBI officials also working on the case declined to comment.

Turner said the indictment probably would be made public next week.

Indictments are usually sealed when there is a likelihood that those charged would flee if they became aware of the case.

The grand jury hearing the case, which was empaneled last month, has listened exclusively to testimony regarding corruption.

Sources and witnesses familiar with the case said the grand jury is investigating Orange-Osceola State Attorney Robert Eagan; Orange County Sheriff Lawson Lamar, who was Eagan's former chief assistant in the late 1970s; Eagan's chief investigator, Lou Lowery; and Sheriff's Cmdr. Jere James, a former state attorney's office investigator.

Eagan is accused of accepting bribes, fixing cases or meddling in police investigations. The others are accused of aiding Eagan in that wrongdoing. All have denied any misconduct and accused political enemies and disgruntled former employees of trying to ruin them.

So far, Eagan and Lamar have testified at length before the panel, while James and Lowery have made only brief appearances. All are expected to appear before the grand jury later.

More than 100 witnesses have been subpoenaed to testify, including several former sheriff's intelligence officers who claimed Eagan, Lamar, Lowery and James meddled in drug, gambling and corruption investigations in the late 1970s and 1980.

Among those who testified Friday were:

-- Former Seminole County deputy sheriff Bob O'Connor, who worked on the 1980 investigation of convicted cocaine dealer Robert Taccia. O'Connor arrested a Taccia associate who later cooperated and helped bring Taccia's arrest. Taccia has claimed he bribed Eagan through a middleman to help fix a 1978 drug case but was double-crossed after sheriff's investigators were tipped to the scheme.

Taccia, who went to work as an informant for the FBI after being convicted in 1979, was unsuccessful in substantiating his claims and went public with his allegations in October 1980. Taccia was arrested a short time later on cocaine-trafficking charges in Brevard County and claimed Eagan helped to frame him in that case to silence and discredit him.

Eagan denied the charges.

O'Connor said he testified he was unaware of any wrongdoing in the Taccia case.

-- Orange County deputy sheriff Gary McFarland, a narcotics agent who arrested Taccia after buying nearly a pound of cocaine from him in the 1980 case on Merritt Island. McFarland said he testified he was unaware of any improprieties in the case.

-- Former Orange County Sheriff's Capt. George Knupp, head of the vice and intelligence units in the late 1970s that investigated Taccia and Eagan. He left the department in 1981 after refusing to accept a demotion when Lamar took office.

Knupp was one of several investigators who had requested a federal grand jury investigation of Eagan and Lamar for the past several years. Now the chief pilot of the Seminole County Sheriff's Office, Knupp said he could not discuss his testimony because Sheriff John Polk has a policy prohibiting employees from making derogatory statements about other law enforcement officials.

-- Former Orange County Sheriff's Lt. Ray Tomlinson, who worked in the intelligence and internal affairs sections under James from 1981 to 1983. Now a management consultant, Tomlinson said he was asked about an internal affairs investigation of several deputies suspected of spreading rumors in 1981 that Lamar was about to be indicted.

Several of those deputies claim they were working secretly with the FBI at the time, and that Lamar and his aides were trying to identify who was cooperating with federal agents.

Tomlinson said he was unaware of any scheme to weed out FBI informants in the department. He said Lamar did question several deputies who either denied spreading rumors or refused to answer questions.

-- Sam Ingham, former chief deputy under Lamar, who was fired in late 1981. A critic of Lamar, Ingham ran against him for sheriff in 1984, but was knocked off the ballot after a judge ruled that he switched parties too close to the election.

Ingham, now an insurance investigator, said only that he provided ''background information'' to the grand jury on Lamar and members of the sheriff's office.